Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an evaporator with a cool storage function.
Discussion of the Background
In recent years, in order to protect the environment and improve fuel consumption of automobiles, there has been proposed an automobile designed to automatically stop the engine when the automobile stops, for example, to wait for a traffic light to change.
However, an ordinary car air conditioner has a problem in that, when an engine of an automobile in which the air conditioner is mounted is stopped, a compressor driven by the engine is stopped, and supply of refrigerant to an evaporator stops, whereby the cooling capacity of the air conditioner drops sharply.
As one measure to solve such a problem, imparting a cool storage function to the evaporator has been considered, to thereby enable cooling of a vehicle compartment by releasing the cool stored in the evaporator, when the compressor stops as a result of stoppage of the engine.
The present applicant has proposed evaporators with a cool storage function (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 2011-149684). In the proposed evaporators, a plurality of flat refrigerant flow tubes which extend in the vertical direction and whose width direction coincides with an air-passing direction are disposed between a pair of tanks spaced from each other in the vertical direction such that the refrigerant flow tubes are spaced from one another in the thickness direction thereof. The evaporator has clearances each formed between adjacent refrigerant flow tubes. Cool storage material containers filled with a cool storage material are disposed in some clearances, and outer fins are disposed in the remaining clearances. Each cool storage material container has a container main body portion joined to the corresponding refrigerant flow tubes, and an outward projecting portion which extends from the leeward edge of the container main body portion over the entire length thereof in the vertical direction and which projects beyond the refrigerant flow tubes with respect to the air-passing direction. An inner fin is disposed in each cool storage material container such that the inner fin extends from the container main body to the outward projecting portion. In one of the proposed evaporators, the inner fin has a staggered shape, and is formed by connecting together a plurality of wavy strips juxtaposed in an air-passing direction. Each of the strips has crest portions extending in the air-passing direction, trough portions extending in the air-passing direction, and connection portions connecting the crest portions and the trough portions. The strips are disposed such that the crest portions and the trough portions of one of two wavy strips located adjacent to each other in the air-passing direction are positionally shifted in the vertical direction from the crest portions and the trough portions of the other wavy strip. In the other proposed evaporator, the inner fin has a corrugated shape and is composed of crest portions extending in the air-passing direction, trough portions extending in the air-passing direction, and connection portions connecting the crest portions and the trough portions.
However, in the case where the evaporators with a cool storage function disclosed in the publication are used for a car air conditioner of an automobile, when the cool storage material within the cool storage material containers is in the liquid phase, an usual sound may be produced because the liquid-phase cool storage material greatly moves in the air-passing direction within the cool storage material containers due to shaking or vibration of the automobile.